I talk honestly and openly about my experiences with mental illness, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome through the lens of feminism, fat acceptance and process theology. I also do recipe and book reviews. My mission is to spread the message that hope is always real for a better life, despite living in a world that is often very harsh.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Eat to Love and Love What You Eat

Right now I am in Maryland visiting relatives. For dinner, we are having mashed potatoes, stuffing, creamed spinach and mushrooms - the mushrooms are divine! - and a roast. Everything is already made by my Uncle Kirk, who loves to cook and is great at it. I am making the roast.

New Things I Ate This Morning: a bagel with cream cheese and lox, capers, and onions. It was fabulous! I mean, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven! Kirk told me that the secret was to sprinkle lemon juice on top of the salmon, so that it did not taste too fishy.

New Things I Ate Last Night: slices of an apple that was dipped in caramel, nuts, and chocolate. Yum! Homemade Clam Chowder!!! I had never had it homemade before. I mean, I had had it restaurant-made, but never homemade, especially for me. (My uncle had made it for us, so that if we wanted something after being in the car twelve hours, we could.) Creamy, vegetabley, clammy, bacony goodness! Yum!

It's funny, but on Shapely Prose, a reader joked about the phrase, "Eat to live, not live to eat." I do not just live to eat, but I don't simply "eat to live" either. Some days, like today, I do nearly live to eat. I am eating with friends and family and it is food filled with both the energy I need and with enough love for my life to thrive. We need more than healthy high-fiber bread and skim milk in this world, although there is nothing wrong with those things. We need calories and fat grams of love to bring us together.

About Me

I'm a fierce smashing-the-patriarchy Christian feminist spreading the word that hope is real for people with mental health and chronic pain challenges. I do NAMI In Our Own Voice presentations, endorse Dialectical Behavioral Therapy(DBT) and baking cupcakes. I am in recovery from borderline personality disorder, an eating disorder and bipolar II. I work on managing my anxiety. I consider myself living in recovery, because mental illness and chronic pain no longer control my life.
If you would like me to speak to your organization about living in recovery from mental illness, please email me.